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Sometimes you write the blog, sometimes the blog rights you…

An article by marthaschaefer

Pick up the routine, fall into the comfort zone you are fighting to hold on to for it will boost you over the changes that are chafing against your skin like sand from the beach in your bathing suit on the way home. It is subtle at first, then you recognize it and decide how to move on.

I write because it centers me, I cook because it relaxes me, I eat because, well because when you forget to your body begins to complain…but eating well is such a joy. Good company in Julia as we fall back into a routine. Ranting about our day, offering sympathy for the hard parts and joy for the moments of success. Having a retreat from the past 12 hours that were made up of each of us being a person who had obligations and masks to wear.

A year ago, I was STILL unemployed and happily out photographing and writing every day. Covered Bridges were my world.

Two years ago I was adjusting to the first weeks of unemployment and learning to get past my guilt at being at the grocery store in the middle of the day. All I wanted from the year I gave myself of reduced obligations was to find the happiness I had given up for prosperity in the corporate life. Ten years ago I was financially healthy but following a fork in life that would lead to the dissolution of a marriage and a step on a very faint path. That path became a well-defined trail, that lead me from photographing a Cadillac junkyard and cooking vast quantities of food with my comrade in blogging crime Laura for TouringinNH.com, to a fun post about my most revered farrier, and organizing a holiday book fair featuring over twenty award-winning local authors.

Thirty-three years ago I was living in Jakarta having a melt-down about the lack of activity while filming an American TV show. The level of stress will always fill life’s edges if you let it. Thirty-six years ago I was finding my way for the first year of my life as an ex-pat in Trinidad. If you try to plan too much, you will miss the adventures, the Therapeutic Misadventures, so to speak.

Today, life is about a cat who comes in when she’s called, smelling of wood smoke and leaves. Dogs who are fed, and happy and lounging on the couch before the fire. A dinner of perfection; salmon with coconut balsamic glaze and a salad of spinach, candied walnuts, fresh pomegranate seeds and avocado. What’s to complain about?

There are rhythms that calm and changes that lead us forward. Finding the balance and going back to smooth those things that chafe is my key to sanity. I feel ‘righted’ again.

Nobody knows the twists and turns, the forks in the roads, the destinations to be found in roads not taken — I think it’s amazing to contemplate one’s life and to consider what might have been or how incredible it is that THIS happened and not THAT, to revel in (or to cringe) knowing that your own actions resulted in where you are today. Truly food for thought!

Martha, I love the way you write, but even more – I love your content. Your blog centres me and gives me a nudge towards calming down and looking at the bigger picture of life. I am facing changes and upheaval in my life over the next six months (or six years!) and every time I feel my panic coming on I remember that others have made huge changes and grown through them. People like you are proof that we can ride those changes and find peace in our world. I look forward to looking back on a life well-lived and being grateful for the changes that have taken me to unusual places as well as keeping me grounded in reality. Thank you!